This application generally relates to communications and, more particularly, to interactive voice messaging systems and to messaging.
Prompting systems are very popular in today's communications environment. These prompting systems, such as an Interactive Voice Response (IVR) system, quickly direct a user to a particular department, extension, or information. These prompting systems, additionally, are an efficient and less expensive method of resolving customer inquiries. Although some users lament the loss of human operators, today's prompting systems provide generally satisfactory customer service at a lower cost.
While prompting systems offer advantages for both businesses and users, current prompting systems are not suited to the Internet environment. That is, the menu of prompts is not accessible to computer users. While an IVR system's menu of prompts may be convenient for callers, computer users could also benefit from having similar access to the menu of prompts. What is needed, then, is an IVR menu of prompts that can be accessed and searched via the World Wide Web.